Prisoners (2013) Movie Review

PRISONERS (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

I see you going for that Oscar Hugh Jackman, don't think we didn't notice. 

When the Dover family go over to their friends house for thanksgiving dinner, they realise something terrible has gone wrong. After the two youngest daughters from each family goes to the Dover's house, everyone quickly realises that they are not there, resulting in them being determined as missing. As a result of this, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) contacts the police and gets introduced to Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) where he tells him that he will not stop until the girls are found. Now looking for these two young girls, Loki must now work with the police to follow various leads and possible sources, all the while Keller becomes taking matters into his own hands in order to find both their friends and their own daughter. When going into this movie, I knew that I was in for a tense and thrilling story. And that's exactly what I got. Throughout the entire movie, I was on the edge of my seat and attempting to guess who could have pulled off this kidnapping. This movie managed to show that you don't need guns and explosions to make a movie exciting and thrilling. It relies more on the characters and the development of them as normal human beings and seeing them struggle through various hardships and disappointments in the course of a 2 and a half hour film. Overall, the story in the movie was beyond excellent as every single possible plot point was left explained and everything managed to make sense by the credits. 

Still of Viola Davis and Terrence Howard

Out of everything in this film, I think the thing that I enjoyed most of all was the shear realism embodied within each character. No matter how big or small, every single character was relevant to the overall conclusion to the story. As a result, this means that the audience has to care for each character at some point in the story, no matter how creepy or off-putting they may be. Another aspect that made the movie for me was once again how real the film was. While watching the movie, it occurred to me that this very situation may have happened somewhere in the world, which is just frightening to me and really put me off during the movie, though thankfully, in a way that made the film that more enjoyable to watch. Sometimes showing the dark sides of stories can have a positive outcome on the quality of the film, and here, it more than works out in Prisoners favour. Back on the topic of the characters, I also enjoyed basically everyone in the film. Hugh Jackman's character while was getting annoying in terms of his frustration, though here it actually makes sense that he is annoying as he is just pleading for his daughter to be found. Another character that while underutilized, it did make sense for her to be, and that is Keller's wife Grace (Maria Bello). While she was only seen in few scenes, she was more than a relevant character due to her contributions to the story that will not be mentioned due to spoiler reasons. Out of everyone however, I actually found the two most interesting characters to be Detective Loki and Alex Jones (Paul Dano). Loki was interesting to me as I have always liked the story of a detective who is the best in the business, though is now faced with his greatest case yet. As for Paul Dano's character, I found him incredibly interesting as he is one of those misunderstood people who has incredibly bad social aspects and is the police's first suspect. Because of this, you kind of feel sorry for him as you don't know if it is actually him. That and he is played by one of my favourite up and rising actors. 

Still of Paul Dano and Jake Gyllenhaal 

As for the acting...just..wow. Jake Gyllenhaal was superb as the frustrated though committed detective and showed just how good of an actor he is. Terrence Howard was really good as the worried father and was more or the less the borderline between good and bad throughout the film. In terms of up and rising actors, Paul Dano easily steals this category as he just manages to maintain his incredible acting even when put into scenes alongside legendary actors like Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. Speaking of Hugh Jackman, Hugh manages to be the ultimate actor not only in the film, but throughout the entire year. In this film, he really does give it his all and delivers a performance that was not only thrilling and powerful, but also managed to  give me goosebumps. I honestly believe that Jackman was not acting, I believe that the director kidnapped his daughter and just took his reactions and just put them in this film. Yep, that's how real and phenomenal his performance was. Overall, I'm not sure what else I can say about the acting as it is easily the best I have seen this year and managed to catch me off guard, especially Paul Dano and Hugh Jackman. 

Still of Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman

Overall, Prisoners is just one of those special kind of movies. It's the kind of film that manages to keep you second guessing, excited, shocked, emotional and most importantly, interested throughout the entirety of the film. As well as, the movie managed to completely surprise me as it is my favourite movie of 2013 so far. 

OVERALL: 9.0/10